Dear Sugar Radio is a weekly podcast from member station WBUR. Hosts Steve Almond and Cheryl Strayed offer "radical empathy" and advice on everything from relationships and parenthood to dealing with drug problems or anxiety.
In this week's episode, listeners ask about what to do when plans for that special day go awry. Here, Sad Daughter-In-Law is stuck in a protracted dispute over something as seemingly simple as wedding invitations.
Dear Sugars,
I'm getting married in a couple of months, and my fiance and I couldn't be more excited. Soon after we were engaged, my fiance's father asked for a relatively large amount of invitations to give out to what he calls "his side."
My fiance, on his own, said no, as we're not giving any of our parents extra invitations; we're trying to keep the numbers down. My future father-in-law's response was: "Then I'm not coming." I told my fiance that if that's what it takes to get him to our wedding, he can have however many invites he wants. But the damage had already been done.
Everyone thought this would blow over, but it's been six months and my fiance and his father are no longer speaking at all. I can't help but think my fiance and his dad will both regret this in 20 years. Many relatives from all sides have reached out to my fiance's father to try to better understand his perspective, but so far, no one has succeeded in making peace.
Is it time for me to say something?
With love,
Sad Daughter-In-Law
Steve Almond: Sad Daughter-In-Law, I hope it doesn't come to this, but you might need to imagine your father-in-law not being at your wedding. And I say that not with any glee. This is a bummer. A wedding is a big event that allows everybody to say what they think a couple should do — with their vows, with their venue, with how big the guest list is, and who's on it. And that's OK, that's their job to push their agenda.
But this conflict between your fiance and his father has been brewing for a lot longer than when these wedding invites went out or the list was compiled. Whatever they're enacting right now is something that they've needed to work out for a while — a power struggle between the two of them. Should you and your fiance discuss this? Should you tell your fiance: "I'm feeling really bad about this. Is there any way to rescue this? What do you think is going on here?" Sure, have that conversation with your fiance. But he's got to be the one who works it out with his father.
And if they can't work it out, I think he's within his rights and you're within your rights to say: "This is very sad, but you are not the boss of us." Acceding to your future father-in-law's belief that he is the center of this thing — or that he should hold a certain amount of power and sway in this — is failing to set a boundary that you actually need to set, right now.
Cheryl Strayed: Yeah, I don't disagree, but I would suggest to you, Sad Daughter-In-Law, a slightly gentler stance. I think there's no question that your father-in-law is in the wrong, and it's about control. And he's being a bully. But I also think that what you want is your father-in-law at your wedding. And so I say that there might be a middle path to get what you want.
And that is not saying: "OK, father-in-law. Whatever you want us to do, we'll do to make you happy, because our wedding's all about you." I'm not suggesting you say that. What if you or your fiance — or I think ideally the two of you together — reached out to your father-in law. You say: "Listen, it breaks our heart that we have this conflict that we haven't been able to solve," without going back and revisiting that conflict. I think at moments like this you just have to let it go.
"It's really important to us that you're at our wedding because we love you and we value you. And we've decided to keep our wedding small, but we would love to invite you and we can invite like four or five other family members. And we would love to talk to you about who you think that can be. And we sure wish that we could invite everyone you want us to invite, but that's just not what our wedding's going to look like."
You're not letting him be the boss of you, you're asserting what you want — his presence at your wedding — and you're also giving him a way out. It sounds to me like he's a very prideful person, somebody who maybe his way of saving face is to follow through on this threat not to come to the wedding. And in some ways, when you are having a conflict with somebody like that, you do need to allow them a face-saving exit.
So, I do not excuse his bad behavior. I am not defending him. I'm saying, I want you to get what you want, because I think you're right — 20 years down the road it's probably going to hurt that this man was such a belligerent jerk about this that he didn't show up at your wedding. So try one more time with gentleness and grace.
You can get more advice from the Sugars each week on Dear Sugar Radio from WBUR. This week they further consider this letter from Sad Daughter-In-Law, and take on more wedding trouble, including whether to invite a homophobic mom to a gay wedding and what to do about a dramatic friend of the bride.
You can listen to Dear Sugar Radio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
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